You’ve Got the Enquiry — Now What?

Converting Enquiries into Signed Contracts: How to Win High-Value Jobs Without Discounting

Last week, we looked at lead generation and why getting the right enquiry is far more important than simply getting lots of enquiries.

Before that, we talked about pricing your contracting business properly and understanding what your work actually needs to earn.

So, assuming you have done that work, you have identified the market you want to operate in, you have marketed yourself to that market and somebody now picks up the phone or sends you an email asking for a quotation.

What happens next?

This is where I think many contractors make selling much harder than it really needs to be.

My son asked me a question when he was starting to develop his decorating business.

“But I’m not a salesman.”

My answer was quite simple.

If you have identified the market you want to work in, developed your marketing strategy and put the right marketing tools around the business, you have already done a lot of the hard work.

Now you have an enquiry from somebody who has shown an interest in what you do.

You don’t suddenly need to become a salesman.

You need to have a process.

My son was never a great communicator unless the conversation was about something he liked.

Yet today he goes into meetings thinking less about selling his business and more about understanding what the customer wants and offering them a solution and a high-quality service.

He wins a lot more than he loses.

And despite all my coaching, I don’t think he would say he has ever really learned formal objection-handling or closing techniques.

Which probably proves my point.

First, understand the enquiry

It is very easy to get excited when a good-looking job lands in your inbox.

But before you spend hours putting together a detailed quotation, stop and ask yourself a few questions.

Who actually wants the work done and who is making the decision?

What are they really looking for?

And perhaps most importantly, why have they contacted you?

Is it simply because they want the cheapest price?

Or are they looking for somebody who can solve a particular problem?

Perhaps they have already had a bad experience with another contractor, or maybe they need the work completed within a particular time-frame, or they need specialist knowledge or skills.

Or maybe they simply want somebody they can trust to do the job properly and leave them with as little hassle as possible.

These things matter.

If you don’t understand what is important to the customer, you are really pricing in the dark.

Remember why they contacted you

This is where the work you have already done starts to pay off.

If you have chosen your market properly, your marketing should already be giving the prospective customer some confidence in what you do.

They may have looked at your website.

They may have looked at previous projects.

They may have seen photographs, qualifications, testimonials or examples of similar work.

By the time you actually speak to them, they should already have some idea that you are capable of doing the job.

That doesn’t mean you should assume you have won it.

It means you now have an opportunity to understand exactly what they want and show them that you can deliver it.

This is particularly important with higher-value work.

If you have followed the pricing process we discussed previously, your price isn’t something you have just pulled out of the air.

It is based on your labour, materials, overheads and the margin you need to make the business work.

So don’t be frightened of your own price.

The site visit is more than measuring up

If you are going to visit the customer, don’t treat it simply as an errand to collect enough information to produce a price.

It is part of the selling process, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it selling.

Listen.

Ask questions.

Look at the job properly.

If you see something that could cause a problem later, explain it.

If there is a better way of doing something, explain why.

If the customer has an expectation that isn’t realistic, explain that too.

You are demonstrating that you understand what you are doing.

That builds confidence.

And confidence is important because when people are spending a significant amount of money, they aren’t simply buying materials and hours of labour.

They are buying the confidence that the job will be done properly.

Don’t just send a price

One of the easiest ways to turn a quality job into a price comparison is to send an email saying:

“Price for works as discussed: £12,500 + VAT.”

What does the customer have to compare?

The number.

And once the number is all they have, you have made it very easy for somebody else to come in £500 cheaper.

A good quotation should explain what the customer is actually getting.

What work are you carrying out?

What materials are you using?

What standards are you working to?

What is included?

What isn’t included?

How long do you expect the work to take?

What does your service provide that somebody else may not?

For a significant project, I would also talk the customer through the quotation rather than simply emailing it over and hoping they read it properly.

Again, this isn’t about becoming a salesman.

It is about making sure the customer understands what they are buying.

And then somebody asks, “Can you do anything on the price?”

Of course they do.

We all ask for a discount, don’t we?

It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to give you the job.

It certainly doesn’t mean you should immediately knock ten percent off your price.

If you have priced the job properly, why would you?

This is where I often tell my son and my clients to go back to what they have already discussed with the customer.

If you have explained that you are using high-quality materials and allowing the right number of hours to achieve the finish they want, explain that again.

If they genuinely need the price to come down, ask what they would be prepared to compromise on.

For example, with my son’s decorating business, it might be possible to use a different paint manufacturer.

But that alternative may give a slightly different finish or have different characteristics.

That doesn’t mean the alternative is bad.

It simply means there is a difference between what was originally specified and what they are now asking you to provide.

The customer can then make an informed decision.

And quite often, particularly on a quality project, they don’t actually want to compromise.

They wanted the better finish in the first place.

What they really wanted was to ask the question:

“Can you do anything on the price?”

There is nothing wrong with asking.

There is also nothing wrong with explaining why your price is what it is.

Following up isn’t being pushy

Another area where contractors can lose work is simply by not following up.

They send the quotation and then sit waiting for the phone to ring.

Sometimes it will.

Sometimes it won’t.

People get busy. Projects get delayed. Partners need to discuss things. Businesses have to get approval.

So, when you send a quotation, agree what happens next.

You might simply say:

“I’ll give you a call on Thursday afternoon once you’ve had a chance to look through everything. Is that OK?”

Now you aren’t chasing them.

You are doing exactly what you said you would do.

And when you follow up, you don’t need a clever sales technique.

Ask if they have any questions.

Ask if there is anything they would like explained.

Ask whether anything has changed.

You are continuing the conversation.

Sometimes you won’t get the job — and that’s OK

If you have done everything properly, priced the work correctly and followed the process, you should have given yourself the best possible opportunity to win the work.

But you won’t win every job.

And I don’t think you should want to.

Sometimes another contractor will be a better fit for the customer.

Perhaps they have a particular skill you don’t have.

Perhaps they are better suited to the type of project.

Perhaps the customer simply prefers them.

If they are a good-quality competitor who can genuinely deliver what the customer wants, then that’s business.

What I don’t want to see is a contractor winning a high-value job simply because they discounted themselves into a position where the job is no longer properly profitable.

Because then you haven’t really won.

You’ve bought yourself a job.

And there is a big difference.

So what have the last three weeks actually been about?

You might reasonably ask what these last three Business After 60 conversations have really been about.

After all, is this really a conversation about running a business if you happen to be in your sixties?

I think it is.

Being 60, 65 or 70 doesn’t suddenly mean that the knowledge you have built up over decades becomes irrelevant.

Quite the opposite.

If you have spent many years running businesses, managing people, dealing with customers, making mistakes, getting things wrong and occasionally getting things right, you have learned something along the way.

You may not know everything.

I certainly don’t.

But I know how to run a contracting business.

I know what has worked for me, what hasn’t, and what I believe gives a contracting business the best chance of being successful.

And this isn’t just theory.

I’m currently using this exact sort of framework with an electrical contractor who is preparing to pass his business across to a younger partner.

His partner is already doing much of the compliance and testing work and knows most of the existing customers.

Yet, like my son, he has said the familiar words:

“I’m not a salesman.”

And he isn’t particularly confident about taking over the running of the business.

But does he really need to suddenly become a salesman or a marketing expert?

He already knows the customers.

He already knows the work.

He already understands the technical side of the business.

What he needs is a framework that brings all those things together and gives him a way of approaching the commercial side of the business with confidence.

That’s really what these conversations are about.

The framework won’t be exactly the same for every business.

A contractor is different from a manufacturer producing a product. A five-person electrical contractor is different from a fifty-person engineering business.

But the principles of understanding your market, knowing your numbers, generating the right enquiries, understanding your customer and having a process for turning an opportunity into profitable work are surprisingly transferable.

And that is where I am taking these conversations.

Over time, I’m going to bring the ideas together into practical frameworks — one aimed at contracting businesses and another for small manufacturers producing and selling their own products.

Not a textbook.

Not a complicated consultancy programme.

Just a framework built around the things I have learned over many years of actually running and working with businesses.

The bottom line

You don’t necessarily need to become a great salesman.

You need to become very good at what you do, know who you want to do it for, understand what your customers need, price your work properly and have a process that allows you to demonstrate all of that.

If you do those things, winning the order should become the natural next step.

And if you lose the job to a quality competitor who was simply a better fit, that’s OK too.

You move on to the next enquiry.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to be a good salesman to win more contracting work?

Not necessarily. If you understand your market, know your service and have a clear process for handling enquiries, much of what people call “selling” is simply having a good conversation with a potential customer and understanding what they need.

Should I discount my price if a customer says it is too expensive?

Not automatically. If your price is based on the actual cost of delivering the work and the profit your business needs, first find out what the customer is concerned about. If necessary, look at whether the specification or scope can be changed rather than simply removing money from your margin.

What should I do if I lose a quotation?

Find out why if you can, learn from it and move on. You won’t win every job, and sometimes another contractor will simply be a better fit. The important thing is not to win work at any cost.

How important is follow-up after sending a quotation?

Very. A professional follow-up isn’t about pressuring someone into buying. It is about making sure they have understood your proposal, answering questions and finding out whether anything has changed.

Can the same approach work for manufacturers?

The details will obviously be different, particularly where you are selling a product rather than a contracting service, but many of the underlying principles are similar: identify the right market, understand the customer, communicate your value, price correctly and have a process for converting genuine opportunities into profitable orders.

Continue the conversation

If you run a contracting business, manufacture a product or simply have years of business experience behind you, I’d be interested in your thoughts.

What has worked for you?

What hasn’t?

And have you ever found yourself saying, “I’m not a salesman,” only to discover that you were actually quite good at talking to customers when you stopped thinking of it as selling?

That’s what these Business After 60 conversations are about — sharing practical experience and turning some of those lessons into frameworks that other business owners can actually use.

Read the next Business After 60 conversation, or explore the wider Business After 60 series.